You scared me there kml, but just for a few seconds before I realized that I had my annual check recently and was tested for HIV. But they did request HIV test this time as well.
You are both right. I am in a much better situation, having the kids with me, than if I had to fight for them or share them out. I think I will just let him see them when he feels like it. And will not initiate anything myself. But I insisted he will let me know in advance (which for him means a text 15 minutes before he shows up - must be sending it when already on his way...).
After my big disappointment from the discussion we had (note to self - don't let yourself get into another discussion like that again, you are not talking to a reasonable person, it only hurts!) he really upset me on Sunday. He said on Fri that he'll ask both sons to help him put his new furniture together. On Sun he asked if he can come to get some tools and told me that s15 does not answer his text so he understands that he is not thrilled about his proposal to go to his new apartment. I replied that s15 is cooking with me at the moment and that of course he can come to get tools and the kids. He arrived, played chess with s15. I left upstairs. S15 came to tell me that they are leaving. I thought all 3 of them. A few minutes later I see s13 is at home. I asked him if he didn't want to go with his father and from the expression on his face I figured the father never even came to his room to say hi to him. I hated myself for asking the question. I should have told him that his brother left to help his father and see what he says. But I could not imagine that H would be in the house and not go to say hi or ask if he wanted to go with them. Not saying hi already happened once and I explained to him that time what it did to s13 (it was just a few weeks after H moved out). Anyway, I was really upset but did not say anything to him. I don't think he even gets it. He only sees himself and his feelings. S15 told me when he came back that he thought H talked to his brother before they left. Obviously not.
He came twice since then. I did not mention anything. I talk to him nicely but I'm not comfortable around him again. I guess I got too close in the past weeks that now it feels like a new disappointment again. Will have to keep distance for a while so I can get back to my almost completely detached state in which I was before our holidays.
Regarding my heath issues, as it turns out, it's not toxoplasmosis. Which is good. But I still don't know what it is. Still waiting for more results. And I will have to repeat test for boleriosis. I'm less concerned now. We'll see. I hope they find out soon what it is so I can get a proper treatment.
Hi Bee, just catching up here. Sorry to hear about you're eye and hopefully you gets some answers soon.
I don't have much advice to offer but remember not to believe what they say. Sorry you and your sons are dealing with his behavior, I really think they don't even know/remember what they are doing sometimes. Keep taking care of yourself and try to let him be.
I keep finding myself drawn to your thread but can't seem to figure out what exactly I want to say...(quiet bonehead society...)
I read your whole thread and I am floored and disgusted by both of your therapists...IMO, therapists should be supportive, help people establish goals, and figure out how to achieve those things...
I noticed that you were much more detatched prior to the vacation with your H and I can completely understand that...
I would like to see you strive to get back to that place...
I would also like to caution you about "disguising" your anger/frustration by making it about your kids. While our kids always end up being our biggest trigger, we need to be sure that we are not nitpicking as a way to release our other emotions...
You and your H are parents. Neither of you, together or not, will always parent the way that the other likes. Because you and your H are NOT one person. So things he does that you don't like, are still his way of parenting. The best thing you can do in most instances is try to help your children learn how to navigate their relationship with their father and manage their own feelings about it. Your sons are about the same age my S was at bomb time. They are old enough to see the bigger picture and find their way to deal with it. Keep your door open to them, help them with their feelings, and let them decide the best way to manage their R with their father. I know it isn't fair and it isn't what you want to hear but it is the best thing for all involved.
Based on your writings, I can see how your H might feel that he was simply the "executor" of your decisions. I understand that someone has to make the decision about how things are going to be, look, happen...however, when one person makes all of the decisions, and the other person does not feel that they have a voice in those decisions, it is easy to say the other person is controlling.
That is something else that I think you may want to look at.
I too am a planner. It's an easy way to know what is going to happen and what it is going to look like. Unfortunately, some people aren't planners, and some things simply can't be planned.
I think it's ok to plan for YOU and possibly your children, but to plan for others, unless they want you to...is not allowing them to act as functioning adults...
Ok, I guess I did find some stuff to say, although it isn't as coherently discussed as I would have liked...
I hope maybe a dialogue has been opened though...
Have a great weekend...I'm officially on vacation in 12 and a half hours...YEA!!!!!
Will try to check in though....
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
Thank you Kyh. Well, not so good yet. Still don't know what's wrong with me and on a sick leave for such a long time now. Must be my longest sick leave ever... The borreliosis test still "slightly" positive (whatever that means) but my doctor does not think it's that. Eye got worse as I had to stop antibiotics, I had really bad allergic reaction to them. That is why I'm not very often here. Eye can start hurting out of the sunned and I'm also very tired so I only manage to read what's new with others and don't manage to come to my thread...
Cat, thank you for your post and really good points you made! I will reply to you soon. Hopefully tomorrow. I'm sooooo tired these days...
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Thank you Job. I feel slightly better but have to stay home a few more days... Then if the blood test shows that the virus is gone, they will put me on some meds that apparently make people either tired or euphoric. Doctor said I may be flying around and seeing everything through pink glasses. That would be great! Now before you think it's some kind of drugs I have to tell you it's "just" cortisone - to treat my eye problem. We'll see. But pink glasses for a few months would be really nice :-).
So before I see everything so positively, I need to journal a bit and reply to Cat.
Cat, I hope you are having (or had already) great holidays!
First, I'm happy to report that I'm now more detached than before holidays. Not sure how exactly it happened but maybe being sick and worried about myself and being so busy with the kids (which was the best thing about my illness - I got to spend so much quality time with them!) I just put my H aside. Also, him coming home almost everyday and at any moment he wished, it just made me increasingly uncomfortable...
Regarding my H's "parenting" if we can call it that way, I agree with you, I cannot do much. But it does make me angry what he does. He made plans with kids again last week. Asked them to help him putting his new furniture together in the new apartment. It was on a school day in the afternoon. Kids were not happy but accepted. Not only that he did not show up on that day, he only sms-ed me around 8 p.m. to say he was dead tired and he will come the following day to cook dinner. Then on Sat he informed them that he will come to get them on Sun to do that. On Sun he came, went to talk to kids then came downstairs, told me he was leaving and to call him if he can be "of any assistance". He was quite angry when he was saying it and his voice was weird. I guess I looked puzzled so he told me that "they" refused to help him and because it's becoming rather urgent he does it he was going to do it by himself (not once he put together a small Ikea shelf, neither did any drilling, it was always my job - I wish I could be a fly on his wall when he was doing it). I didn't say anything. Neither to him. Nor to the kids. Kids already told me several times not to keep helping him, accommodating his needs and accepting things on his time, that he doesn't deserve it (my teenagers smarter than the mother?)...
I truly believe that I'm detached enough not to be angry with anything else, but I will keep alert to my true feelings in case I'm in denial. Thank you Cat for pointing this out. And I'll work on not getting upset about his "parenting" and ignore it. Just support/talk to kids about it when they need it.
As for his "executor" role. Well, I can understand how he can feel like that. However, it's one thing that I cannot do/don't want to do much about anymore. My H never did anything by himself. He was comfortable just doing his job and coming home to rest. Cat, I read somewhere that your h never helped enough for you to have time for yourself or something like that. It was the same for me. When kids were small he was coming back from work when they were already in bed and during the weekend it was his time to rest as he had "such a demanding job". Then I got back to work, had full time job just like him, with the same high responsibilities but he was not helping though he said he would, it was me who had to do everything. If I didn't, it simply didn't get done. I remember when we were building our house in this country I didn't speak the language very well. The language of the country is my h's first language. Whenever there was a question from the builders or something to do for us, decide on something etc., I asked my h to translate, explain, deal with it. His answer would either be he was busy and he just could not drop everything, what do these guys think, he has to be available for them when they need it. He has a job. Or he would say he doesn't understand what they want, he's not a plumber, builder.... to know what those words mean. So I ended up dealing with it by myself, using dictionaries and/or with my in-laws on the phone (in-laws who are also not plumbers, builders...). And the best example of how things were: neither me nor my h can swim with our heads under water. Because we wanted our kids know how to swim properly we agreed we will find a coach for them when they were little. I got a few names through our gym but they told me the guys did not speak English. So I gave their phone numbers to my h and asked him to make calls. To cut the story short: 2 years later the kids started their swimming lessons... So, I do understand why he may feel that he had to do what I asked or I did everything the way I wanted it. I always discussed options with him before I decided on something, he would just say "whatever, do what you think is best, I really don't have time to deal with this...". While I didn't mind so much as he seemed to be happy and though I was tired I was happy to do that for our family, now I see it was a mistake.
I do admit that I'm a planner and therefore things drive me crazy when not planned and arranged ahead. But on the other hand, I accepted for many years that we did things at the last moment and in a chaotic way. It was stressing me out but I accepted. It costs us a lot of money, energy and nerves over years. I was fine. But since the crisis and his criticising and blaming me for everything and having too much on my plate I just started to do things my way. Maybe not the best thing to do, maybe this really helped to create more distance between us but... And not maybe, for sure, I know!
Regarding the therapists, I still cannot get over that. But I think, it's a general problem, at least here in Europe. They just look at individuals and individual happiness. The fact that by being selfish (which they all kind of suggested to me to become) you can do a lot of damage around (e.g. kids, spouse, extended family...) does not seem to be so important. No wonder there is so many people with psychological issues around. My experience with therapists and the fact that for good ones you need to wait several months before you get an appointment (and then you are disappointed by their behavior) I decided to look up long distance learning schools. I found one psychology degree which seems good and manageable with my full time job (and full time parenting). My grandfather was a psychiatrist and I always had interest in it too. I still like to read a lot of psychology books. My husband always says that I have a gift and he calls me Mrs Freud (though I would prefer to be called Mrs Jung :-)). So, I decided I will try to get a degree and maybe change my profession in a couple of years. I'm in finance and in high demand for the moment but have no illusion that in a couple of years the demand will be for much younger sharks than me :-). I have lot of friends who confide in me and are telling me I should have been a psychologist. Well, maybe that's my calling. Another advantage is that I could do that anywhere in the world... Will try to enroll in the semester starting in March. Wish me luck! And even if I will never practice, it will still be nice to learn more.
As I said, I have some more journaling to do. I think I'm done with my h for now. Will try to limit my contact with him again. And I have to confess I sent h an e-mail which...let's just say is not a good DB-ing. Tomorrow. It's midnight now.
Wow, going into psychology! Talk about GAL. I have to agree about ICs and individual happiness/selfishness. With my first one I had to bear a lot of what I read in DR in mind although she was very helpful. Idt they realize we know what we had and the extreme changes in our MLC spouses most of the time. Like our well-meaning friends and family they want us to feel better asap.
Thanks for stopping by my thread, hope you keep getting better!
A new course can be the best GAL in my opinion! I'm a course junkie myself, and love learning. And psychology is such an interesting subject, I'm sure you will love it!
Catching up with your thread your H sounds so much like mine, especially the rewriting of history. Mine is slightly better when it comes to the kids, but not the man I though he was.
I hope you get better soon, take care of yourself
"There's nothing sadder than a conman conning himself"
“There is freedom waiting for you, On the breezes of the sky, And you ask "What if I fall?" Oh but my darling, What if you fly?”
Thank you Kyh and Esame. Yes, getting better. Last two days at home and then back to work.
I wanted to journal a bit what happened since we are back from holidays. H is much more involved, coming more often, also when I was sick but even before. At some point we discussed that he should let me know before he's coming which he did for a few days but then stopped when I got sick and was coming almost everyday. So he just showed up whenever he felt like it. He was also texting me much more, telling me that he has lunch in my areas (meaning the area where I work), or he has lunch with this person and that person. And he even goes to have lunch with people who I am close with and he knows through me though he was not doing that before. And he shares a lot from his work days with me.
He seems much better since holidays. Sometimes I wonder, like many of you here mentioned in your posts, if it really is MLC, seeing him like this. He now keeps eye contact, though it's true only when we talk about neutral things. Seems much calmer than before. I'm not sure what's going on.
Maybe it's because he's now much more often with us so he has the best of both worlds. I really don't know. The affair seems to continue with higher intensity. Now someone calls him every time he is at home for more than an hour. Nobody ever calls him on weekends and also he never picks up the phone when it rings so I assume it's her.
I must say I am not happy about him coming so often. And the fact that it's always me who talks to him, kids usually disappear the moment we finish eating. Sometimes they stay to play chess with him but less now that he comes so often. But again, he only comes when he wants. We had both birthdays of the kids in September and we always celebrate it on the day. For one of the b-days he went on business trip. He could have moved it but he "did not think it would be a problem". S15 said he wants to celebrate on the day of his b-day, especially that the day h said he would come in the evening it was not sure he will come early enough to have a dinner and cake as he was taking 2 planes between which he only had 30 mins. So we did celebrate without him on the day but I was sorry for him so I said if he let's me know that he boards the second plane I'll go and buy another cake and we can celebrate with him again. I'm not sure why I'm doing this as he never thinks about us.
This was after I discovered that he lied to me and the kids at the end of August, and not only about his whereabouts, but also he made up a story how his plane was cancelled two days in a row and he didn't know when he can come back and how he, poor thing, has to wear the same clothes for 2 days (like it's a problem for him to go to a shop to buy new ones). He was again on business trip from Wed to Fri. He told me he come back on Sat and will take kids out on Sun if it's ok with me. I said yes. I run like a maniac on Sat with the kids to prepare everything to get them ready for school on Monday and that they can be free for him on Sun. Around 3 p.m. still no news from him. Around 4 he sent a text to S15 telling him that he will come at 6 to cook dinner... I had plans with a friend as I was expecting to be alone on Sun afternoon. I text him to tell him he said he's taking kids out. He apologised, told me the story about the cancelled flights and how sorry he is. I asked him to communicate next time. And he said, "yes, I should have communicated but I did not know you had plans". Is he for real??!! And then in the evening he texts me to say how devastated he is that he let the kids down and ruined my weekend...
Anyway, I had a feeling that he may be in a different city than the one he said he was as the city where he went for business trip (with his muse) is just an hour away from a country where she comes from. So, I thought maybe she wanted to show him around her home country. But then I thought he would not promised kids to go out, he cannot be that crazy. Well, a month later, I receive a statement from our credit cards. I didn't even notice myself, just my son says "who went to [city in her home country]?". There were charges already from Fri (he claimed his flight on Sat morning was cancelled and then another on Sun morning so it was all lies). Despite promising myself that I will not be upset with anything including his parenting, I just could not help myself. I sent him an e-mail, told him I just don't understand how he can make plans with them when he knows he won't be here.
This was really too much combined with other things he is doing these days which some of it I already journaled earlier.
I told him it was the last drop and I will no longer help him with them and accommodate his needs and his timing etc. That I will not let him play with their hearts. I told him that until he seeks help I won't be there for him unless he is sick or in life danger. I said there is no need for him to reply that I won't read it. If he wants my help he knows where to find me for the rest I am no longer interested in more lies.
I'm seriously done! I just cannot go on like this. I do not recognise this person and just want to be left alone. Which again makes me think that it was much better before holidays when he was not coming here so often and I did not see him for a few months.
He did reply. Just some stupid think about how he doesn't understand where I'm taking time and energy from to write such an e-mail. And that I'm entitled to my opinions but he disagrees with both the premises and my conclusions. And he added if it makes sense he will buy train tickets to go see his parents with the kids. What did that have to do with anything? Apart from trying to find someone to blame for the fact that tough he asked me 10 days ago if I'm ok with it that he goes and I said fine as long as he doesn't drive, he still did not even look up the train tickets and knew that now it will be expensive...
He came, we celebrated the b-day again with him. We only talked about my health when left alone the two of us. Then the next day they were supposed to go. My MIL calls me if I know whether they are coming or not and if so when. That she has no news. She needs to know if to cook for 3 more people or not. Her son is horrible, she doesn't understand what he is doing, she has enough of him, he never picks up the phone when she's calling etc. etc.
Then they finally left. And that's another story: he takes kids the second time since February somewhere for around 24 hours and he manages to involve me and ruin my plans. Soon after they left he texts me that S13's backpack was stolen on the train. He had card with his name in it and the key to the house so I should "watch out" as the thief might have stayed in our city. In the backpack was also his favourite teddy bear - a family member, really. Though s13 is already big, he still wants to take it everywhere with him, just hidden in his backpack. I started to cry when I saw the text. I'm also attached to the teddy. But then he sends another text that the backpack may be in his car or in a restaurant. So I called the restaurant and it was there. Luckily! But it took me 3 hours to do all that as the city was totally jammed and it was heavy raining.
Then they came back last night. All went fine. Apparently h did not get angry with s13 (again, very unusual), he told him that things like that happen etc... Today s15 tells me they were in a car accident yesterday when h was driving MIL's car with the kids. Somebody banged into them from the back when he had to stop suddenly as someone was crossing the street. Do you think he informs me about such important event? No! What if one of the sons was not well during the night and I would not even know...
As I said, I'm done. For now. I need to concentrate now on getting better and catch up at work. It will be a busy period and I really don't have the energy to deal with him now. I saw 2 quotes somewhere the other day: "Sometimes you have to walk away from what you want to find what you deserve." and "Distance sometimes let's you know who's worth keeping and who's worth letting go."
I'm starting to think that he is the latter. Definitely the person he is now. Should he ever want to come back, well, we'll see then...
